CONNECT

I write because I love to and because I can and because the sharing of thoughts and ideas, of memoirs and stories, of hopes and dreams and wonder – especially wonder – is ultimately an act of giving. Yes, to write is to share what Robert Frost looked upon as a Gift Outright, one that is freely and forever given.

One writes because they love or because they care or are fascinated or are committed or are devoted or determined or convinced. Without a reason, without a mission or purpose, without an end or an objective in mind, one simply cannot write.

My third published work will soon be released and I will briefly focus upon all 3 of them shortly, while pausing now to note that which is in process.

With a working title of The Lake Beckons, I write about some 75 years in the life of Crater Lake and the people who frequented it when it was little known to the world, before the government of the United States of America stepped in, via eminent domain, to remove the people who had settled there and to bulldoze the homes that they loved down. It is a story of joy, celebration, loss and remembrance. It is driven by the love that was extended there and the natural wonders that daily amazed.

To lead, in any fashion, is to first know who you are and I know that what I am today was, in my having survived when death seemed imminent, turned upside down and made over.

For once upon a time, my focus was upon jobs and jobs training and better transit systems and youth service projects and affordable housing and literacy and High Schools for Unwed Mothers and planning and employment and training commissions, TMAs, economic health and even a Northeast Midwest Leadership Council, but on the other side of Neisseria Meningitis and end stage renal disease and cancer and mercer, it is now upon faith and going to higher ground and striving to see the world as God does and serving those who suffer – physically, mentally, emotionally.

But my deep conviction that leadership can only be forged in a committed, relentless desire to serve has only been reinforced.